Personal journal dealing mainly with music listened to, plus various food and wine matters. Rants at a few favourite topics.

Monday, 12 December 2016

Bach Cantatas with Sigiswald Kuijken

With a somewhat vast
collection of recordings to listen to, I tend to follow my nose (or,
rather, my ears) when it comes to selecting something I want to hear.
Returning home from three weeks away in France, Laos and Myanmar, I
was thirsty for music. Fortunately, at some time in my life, I
acquired eight CDs of Bach cantatas (Accent) conducted by Sigiswald
Kuijken with his Petite Bande and an array of soloists.
Each CD has around three cantatas each. The performances are sane,
well played, well sung, and well recorded. The music is, of course,
Bach. I am happy to sit back in my chair and listen to cantata after
cantata. Kuijken uses soloists for the “choir”, a cost-cutting
exercise that normally perturbs me, but it does not matter too much
in the cantatas where the choral role is normally not too vital (it
is a different matter, of course, when we come to the Mass in B
minor, or the Passions). A happy event when these purchases from the
past fill a necessary need. I often wonder why on earth I continue to
buy recordings, when I have more excellent ones on my shelves than I
can possibly listen to.